The Twenty-ninth ODE of the FIRST BOOK of HORA CE.

Paraphras'd in Pindaric Verfe, and infcribed to the Right Hon. Laurence Earl of Rochester.

I.

DESCENDED of an ancient line,

That long the Tufcan fceptre fway'd,
Make haste to meet the generous wine,
Whose piercing is for thee delay'd:
The rofy wreath is ready made :
And artful hands prepare

'The fragrant Syrian oil, that fhall perfume thy hair.

II.

When the wine sparkles from afar,

And the well-natur'd friend cries Come away; Make hafte, and leave thy bufinefs and thy care: No mortal intereft can be worth thy stay.

III.

Leave for a while thy coftly country feat;
And, to be great indeed, forget
The nauseous pleasures of the great:

Make hafte and come:

Come, and forfake thy cloying store;

Thy turret that furveys, from high,

The fmoke, and wealth, and noife of Rome;

And all the bufy pageantry

That wife men fcorn, and fools adore:

Come, give thy foul a loose, and taste the pleasures of

the poor.

IV.

Sometimes 'tis grateful to the rich, to try
A short viciffitude, and fit of poverty :
A favory difh, a homely treat,
Where all is plain, where all is neat,
Without the stately fpacious room,

The Perfian carpet, or the Tyrian loom,
Clear up the cloudy foreheads of the great.

V.

The Sun is in the Lion mounted high;
The Syrian ftar,

Barks from afar,

And with his fuitry breath infects the sky; The ground below is parch'd, the Heavens above us fry. The fhepherd drives his fainting flock

Beneath the covert of a rock,

And feeks refreshing rivulets nigh:

The Sylvans to their shades retire,

Thofe very fhades and ftreams new fhades and streams require,

And want a cooling breeze of wind to fan the raging fire.

VI.

Thou, what befits the new Lord Mayor,

And what the city factions dare,

And what the Gallic arms will do,
And what the quiver-bearing fee,
Art anxiously inquifitive to know:
But God has, wifely, hid from human fight

The

The dark decrees of future fate,
And fown their feeds in depth of night;

He laughs at all the giddy turns of ftate;

When mortals fearch too foon, and fear too late.

VII.

Enjoy the present smiling hour;

And put it out of fortune's power:

The tide of bufinefs, like the running ftream,
Is fometimes high, and fometimes low,
A quiet ebb, or a tempestuous flow,

And always in extreme.

Now with a noifelefs gentle course
It keeps within the middle bed;
Anon it lifts aloft the head,

And bears down all before it with impetuous force;
And trunks of trees come rolling down,

Sheep and their folds together drown:

Both houfe and homefted into feas are borne;

And rocks are from their old foundations torn,

And woods, made thin with winds, their fcatter'd ho

nours mourn.

VIII.

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

He, who can call to-day his own:
He who, fecure within, can fay,

To-morrow do thy worft, for I have liv'd to-day;
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or fhine,

The joys I have poffefs'd, in spite of fate are mine,
Not Heaven itself upon the paft has power;

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

Fortune,

IX.

Fortune, that, with malicious joy,
Does man her flave oppress,
Proud of her office to destroy,
Is seldom pleas'd to bless :
Still various and unconstant still,
But with an inclination to be ill,
Promotes, degrades, delights in ftrife,
And makes a lottery of life.

I can enjoy her while she 's kind;
But when the dances in the wind,

And shakes the wings and will not stay,

I puff the prostitute away :

The little or the much she gave, is quietly refign'd: Content with poverty, my foul I arm ;

And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.

If the maft, split, and threaten wreck ?

Then let the greedy merchant fear

For his ill-gotten gain ;

And pray to Gods that will not hear,

While the debating winds and billows bear
His wealth into the main.

For me, fecure from fortune's blows,
Secure of what I cannot lose,

In my finall pinnace I can fail,
Contemning all the bluftering roar;
And, running with a merry gale,
With friendly stars my safety seek
Within fome little winding creek :

And fee the ftorm afhore.

قر

The Second EPODE of HORACE.

HOW happy in his low degree,

How rich in humble poverty, is he,

Who leads a quiet country life;
Difcharg'd of bufinefs, void of strife,
And from the griping fcrivener free!
Thus, ere the feeds of vice were fown,

Liv'd men in better ages born,
Who plow'd with oxen of their own
Their finall paternal field of corn.
Nor trumpets fummon him to war,

Nor drums difturb his morning fleep, Nor knows he merchants' gainful care, Nor fears the dangers of the deep. The clamours of contentious law,

And court, and ftate, he wifely fhuns,
Nor, brib'd with hopes, nor dar'd with awe,
To fervile falutations runs ;

But either to the clasping vine
Does the fupporting poplar wed,
Or with his pruning-hook disjoin